The Oscars 2020 ceremony didn’t have any big mistakes of the La La Land/Moonlight variety, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to criticize. Of course, there was the noticeable lack of representation for female filmmakers and people of color, which the show seemed to try to quell with interstitial segments celebrating them. Maybe next year, we can just nominate them. Cool? Cool.
But there was also a notable omission from the show’s In Memoriam segment, which featured Billie Eilish singing “Yesterday”: Luke Perry. The actordied in March 2019 at just the age of 52, and while he was best known for TV shows like Beverly Hills, 90210 and more recently, Riverdale, he also appeared in a number of films. In fact, one of Perry’s final roles was in Quentin Tarantino’sOscar-nominated Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. How do we leave out someone who’s in one of the Best Picture contenders?
Fans (myself included) were rightfully upset on social media.
We bet Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t thrilled either. “I was immediately struck by his kindness,” he told Entertainment Weekly last year about Perry, his Once Upon a Time in Hollywood costar. “And talking about being a native of Los Angeles, being around this industry my entire life, and really having it in a lot of ways shape who I am, there was this immediate excitement in seeing Luke Perry on set. I remember being in my teens and he was the manifestation of the new [James] Dean on television and everyone was crazy about him. And I felt this overwhelming feeling of being star-struck. Then he and I got to sit down and talk about Los Angeles, the ’90s, his life, where his career had gone, where my career had gone, where his life had gone, where my life…and I was just so, how do I say this, the kindness of his character, I don’t know, it really affected me. When I heard that news it was really heartbreaking.”
Many eyes were on Riverdale‘s season four premiere Wednesday night, as both fans and critics waited to see how it would pay tribute to Luke Perry, who passed away in March after suffering a stroke. Perry, perhaps best known for portraying Dylan McKay on Beverly Hills, 90210, co-starred on Riverdale as Archie Andrews’s father, Fred. He was a beloved character—a moral compass, of sorts, in what’s otherwise an incredibly dark and dramatic world. Tonight’s episode, appropriately titled “In Memoriam,” honored that.
Early in the episode we learn the cause of Fred’s death: He was driving a few towns over and stopped to help a woman whose car tires blew out. While attempting to fix her car, he was struck by an ongoing vehicle and sustained fatal injuries. The person driving the car didn’t stop after hitting Fred. At first, we think the culprit is a grown man named George Augustine, who Archie goes to confront in a fit of rage. But there’s a twist: George is actually covering for his young son, who secretly took the family’s car out and struck Fred by accident.
Archie is overcome with even more emotion when he finds out how his father died. Essentially, Fred passed away as he lived on Riverdale: helping people. What’s more: George covered up for his son exactly how Fred would’ve for Archie had he done something similar. There’s a resonance to how the show-runners wrote Fred’s death that deserves to be applauded.
Also commendable (and powerful) was including Shannen Doherty, Perry’s 90210 co-star, in the episode. She plays a small but pivotal role as the woman who Fred pulled over to help. Doherty appears midway through the episode, dropping flowers off on the side of the road where Fred was hit. “He saved my life,” she tells Archie. “If he hadn’t done what he did, there’s no way I’d be here right now. I know that.”
Many Beverly Hills, 90210 fans were moved by Doherty’s cameo. Here are just a few Twitter reactions:
The episode, overall, was a respectful, heartfelt, and warm homage to a Hollywood icon. It makes sense that Riverdale creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa waited until now to address Luke Perry’s death on the show. Doing it in the spring, so soon after Perry passed, would’ve felt like a rush job—like the show was trying to fit something in at the last minute. But Perry was too important of a figure, both on Riverdale and beyond, to get a quick tribute.
“A shallow person will have only shallow relationships,” Bloom wrote on Instagram the day of their engagement. “Real love is not one person clinging to another, it can only be fostered between two strong people secure in their individuality. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of The Little Prince wrote in a work called Wind, Sand and Stars, ‘Love is not two people gazing at each other, but two people looking ahead together in the same direction.'”
It’s been quite the ride for the couple, who first began a flirtation in early 2016 and, through several ups and downs, made their way to a proposal. Below, check out a complete timeline of their relationship:
January 2016: Perry and Bloom reportedly have a mild flirtation at a Golden Globes after-party. “Katy and Orlando had a total dance-off—it was the best part of the party,” a source told Us Weekly at the time. “Katy literally dropped to the floor and was waving her booty around, beckoning Orlando.” That same month they saw a production of The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey in Culver City, California, and posed for a photo.
May 2016:Us Weekly reports Bloom and Perry are an item but are consciously avoiding being photographed together. A prime example of this was at the amfAR Gala during the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where they sat at separate tables.
As promised, Taylor Swift delivered the music video for her latest single, “You Need to Calm Down,” this morning—and it’s packed with famous faces and a lot of color.
Over the weekend, Swift released a list of some of her celebrity friends who appear in the video, like all the guys from Queer Eye, Ellen DeGeneres, Ryan Reynolds, Pose‘s Billy Porter, RuPaul, and Ciara.
But one name was conspicuously left off the list: Katy Perry. That’s right: Katy Perry, dressed in her Met Gala burger costume, reunites with Taylor Swift, who’s dressed as an order of fries. The two approach each other hesitantly, but then end up awkwardly slow-dancing like you did back in middle school. Rumors began swirling over the weekend that Perry would appear in Swift’s video, and that they kissed during their burger-fry dance. But Swift shut this down, saying, “To be an ally is to understand the difference between advocating and baiting.” It turns out that the fast food concept was true—just not the kiss.
We already knew these two were back to being friends after the cookie peace offering seen ’round the world, but now it’s officially official. Does this mean Swift will be making an appearance in an upcoming Perry video? We hope so.
[embedded content]
“A happy meal,” Swift captioned a photo of her and Perry on Twitter.
“This meal is BEEF-free #MeatFreeMonday ?♥️?,” Perry wrote on Instagram.
Swift wants to celebrate all the friends she asked to be in the video. “The #YNTCDmusicvideo is out! First, I want to say that my co-stars in this video are AMAZING. Please celebrate by supporting their work, following them, and going to see them perform. I’m SO grateful and SO EXCITED I ACTUALLY DO NEED TO CALM DOWN,” she tweeted, before going on to tag them all in subsequent posts.
But what of all the other Swiftian references in the video? There, naturally, are many. Here’s a rundown of some of the best ones.
Taylor Swift and Katy Perry have a long and complicated history, dating back publicly to 2009. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses: The friendly relationship between two of the world’s biggest pop stars allegedly soured in 2013—but now Swift and Perry are now back on good terms. We know about this thanks to an Instagram post on Perry’s feed this week featuring a plate of cookies that says, “Peace at last” with the caption, “feels good ? @taylorswift.” Swift, for her part, responded with several beating-heart emoji.
Now that they’re pals again, rumors swirled that there might be a collaboration in the works. Some fan theories took things even further, reports People, by speculating about the music video for the just-released “You Need to Calm Down,” which many see as an anti-hate, pro-LGBTQ+ song—and one person had a question about it for Swift. As they wrote on Tumblr, “Hey uhhhh @taylorswift not to question you but you do know there’s a leaked concept that you and katy dress as fries and a burger and kiss. you do know that’s dumb, right? please tell me you know it’s dumb.”
With any Taylor Swift project, there are always a ton of theories floating around the internet—and she’s even admitted to hiding Easter eggs in videos and posts for her fans to analyze. But Swift is also known for dipping into her fans’ posts and commenting on the validity of such rumors—and she chose to do just that this time.
Her answer? It’s a hard no.
“GUYS. That is ABSOLUTELY false. To be an ally is to understand the difference between advocating and baiting. Anyone trying to twist this positivity into something it isn’t needs to calm down. It costs zero dollars to not step on our gowns. ?✌️” (See how she worked in a few lyrics from her latest single, “You Need to Calm Down” in there?)
A fan account captured the entire exchange and posted it to Instagram, which you can see below.
Although it might be fun to see Perry bust out her Met Gala burger costume one more time, we have to agree with Swift’s thinking here. That said, these two collaborating on a track? That’s definitely on our wish list.
“I’ve done nothing but love & support you. It’s unlike you to pit women against each other. Maybe one of the men took your slot,” Swift tweeted at Minaj. Queen Nicki said her tweet wasn’t about Swift—or any artist in particular—but that didn’t stop Perry from making this comment on Twitter:
“Finding it ironic to parade the pit women against other women argument about as one unmeasurably capitalizes on the take down of a woman,” Perry wrote.
October 2015: Swift doubles down on not revealing the specific inspiration behind “Bad Blood.”
“I never said anything that would point a finger in the specific direction of one specific person, and I can sleep at night knowing that,” Swift told GQ. “I knew the song would be assigned to a person, and the easiest mark was someone who I didn’t want to be labeled with this song. It was not a song about heartbreak. It was about the loss of friendship.” At this point, however, we all knew exactly who this song was about.
February 2016: Perry puts Swift on the guest list for her Grammy after-party
Swift did not attend, but many took this as a sign a truce was in sight. They were wrong.
May 2016: Perry’s Twitter is hacked.
Before we knew this, though, people thought Perry actually tweeted, “miss u baby” to Swift. Unfortunately, it was just a hack. The drama still raged on.
June 2016: Perry announces that she’s launching a perfume called “Mad Love.”
…which is a lyric in “Bad Blood.” Subtle.
July 2016: Calvin Harris says in a Twitter rant that Swift is trying to “bury” Perry.
Harris’ Twitter tirade stemmed from “What You Came For” credit drama, but he managed to throw in a comment about Perry in between his other gripes. “I know you’re off tour and you need someone new to try and bury like Katy ETC but I’m not that guy, sorry. I won’t allow it,” he wrote. Perry responded with a Hillary Clinton GIF and a retweet from 2015: “Time, the ultimate truth teller.”
What Harris meant by “bury” is still a mystery, but his tweet seemed to confirm that Swift did have some kind of grudge against Perry—as if that needed confirming.
September 2016: Perry tweets she’d collaborate with Swift if she apologized.
We’d soon learn what Perry meant by this.
October 2016: Perry rocks out to “Famous” at Kanye West’s concert.
[embedded content]
She posted a clip of herself dancing at the exact moment West raps about Swift. If you forget, this is the song that caused all the drama between Swift, West, and Kim Kardashian. West claimed Swift approved of him calling her a “bitch” in the song, but she says she never green-lit the verse. This feud came to a head when Kardashian released a private conversation between West and Swift, which proved Swift was cool with the song…but not necessarily the “bitch” lyric. The fact Perry shared a video of herself jamming out to this song is shady, to say the least.
May 2017: Perry says there isn’t a response to “Bad Blood” on her new album, Witness, but then she releases “Swish Swish.”
“There is no one thing that’s calling out any one person,” Perry told Entertainment Weekly about her album, which everyone believed—until they heard “Swish Swish.” The track, which clearly is a response to Perry’s haters, contains lyrics like, “You’re about as cute as an old coupon expired” and “Your game is tired; you should retire.”
[embedded content]
It didn’t take long for people to connect the dots, including a member of Swift’s squad, Ruby Rose. Shortly after “Swish Swish” dropped, the actress went on a Twitter rant ripping Perry apart—and inadvertently sticking up for Swift.
May 2017: Perry hard-core opens up about the feud on Carpool Karaoke.
[embedded content]
Perry confirmed everything during her ride with James Corden. She said that yes, there’s a situation between her and Swift, and yes, it’s about backup dancers. Perry also said she tried to talk to Swift about the incident, but Swift ignored her and instead chose to “write a song.” “Could that song perhaps be “Bad Blood?” Here’s everything Perry told Corden:
